LUCAS

The Laboratory of Urban Complexity and Sustainability (LUCAS) is an interdisciplinary team of academics, research fellows and PhD students. We are working on projects to better understand how cities function, socially and physically, and how this functioning and its consequences for social, economic and environmental sustainability can be improved upon.

Further information on our work can be found on our research pages and blog.

LUCAS is also a key component of the University's Sustainable and Resilient Cities Research Priority Area (RPA).

Sustaining Urban Habitats: an interdisciplinary approach

The hub of our activity is the Leverhulme Research Programme Grant Sustaining urban habitats: an interdisciplinary approach. The ambitious aim of this project is to transform our understanding of how sustainable cities, and by extension our species, can be.

Our objectives in achieving this aim are to:

• Confront and understand the complex interrelated and competing factors influencing urban sustainability.
• Holistically define, measure and model urban sustainability.
• Identify pathways to transition developed cities and accommodate growth in developing cities in minimally unsustainable ways.
• Define policy and governance structures to implement these pathways in practice.